


Your kisses are like poetry: Or, bad attempts at seduction by Commander Shepard

by Defira



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-01 09:24:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defira/pseuds/Defira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Ashley Williams put up with Shepard's terrible way with words, and one time she didn't</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2183: SSV Normandy Cargo Bay

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Mass Effect Big Bang (Fall 2013), with all the thanks in the world for my fabulous artist [pandabandanna](http://pandabandanna.tumblr.com/post/67749865877/your-kisses-are-like-poetry-or-bad-attempts-at)\- she took my story and she brought it to life

The lift eased to a halt, and Yesmin muttered _finally_ under her breath, closing down the mini-game she’d been playing on her omni-tool; Chakwas had her beat, two levels ahead, and no matter how many freaking puppies she saved she couldn’t work out how to level up.

Things were growing desperate- she was obviously going to have to hack the game to improve her score. 

She heaved herself up from where she’d been leaning on the wall and waited for the lift doors to hiss open, sliding smoothly over well oiled hydraulics. She’d take loud and clunky any day compared to these snail-like monstrosities; maybe if she told the Admiralty board it was inhibiting her work, someone would replace it.

A girl could dream.

She stepped out of the lift and tugged somewhat nervously on the hem of her shirt, nodding to Garrus and Wrex; the aliens were an unusual but no less welcome presence on the ship. She still wasn’t sure where she stood with them, precisely. She’d worked with turians before, as a part of her N7 training, and Garrus wasn’t exactly breaking the mould; krogans were a bit more of a novelty, and so far she didn’t really know if Wrex respected her or just sort of... _nothinged_ her. She had a feeling he saw her just as a means to an end, and she could accept that mostly- she wasn’t here to befriend the galaxy, after all.

Still, she wasn’t really keen to get on his bad side. 

But the giant krogan returned her nod, and she could hear that deep chuckle of his that she didn’t know whether to think of as sinister or endearing. 

He wasn’t her target this afternoon though, and neither was Garrus; she pulled again on the bottom edge of her shirt and then scowled at herself for fiddling as she crossed the cargo bay to where one of her other new recruits was spending her time familiarising herself with the shipboard armory. And as Gunnery Chief Williams turned to her with a smile, sniper rifle held carefully in her hands, Yesmin had to swallow past the sudden lump in her throat and admit the fact that she might possibly have a thing for attractive women carrying powerful weapons. 

And then she had to wonder how that was even a revelation, because of course she liked attractive women. And weapons.

Okay, the two of them together was probably a new thing. Normally she tended to go for more femme women, not ridiculously brave and blunt amazon women.

Normally.

Sometimes?

Oh fuck, she was gonna make such a mess of this.

“It’s been a little crazy around these parts, Williams,” Yesmin said, as she sidled up to the table where Ashley was expertly taking apart a heavy calibre rifle for cleaning. “Haven’t really had a chance to welcome you properly, or get to know you.”

Ashley smiled, sort of absently, as she focussed on getting a bit of grit out of a spring. “Don’t worry on my account, skipper,” she said, and Yesmin felt a warm flush at the nickname. “I really appreciate Captain Anderson taking me on after Eden Prime, and you and the rest of the crew have made me feel right at home here.”

“It doesn’t bother you, losing Captain Anderson so quickly?” Yesmin asked, prying a little.

Only a little, though.

Ashley made a disbelieving noise. “Are you kidding? I’d resigned myself to being stuck on patrol duty out in the colonies for the rest of my life- serving on a first class ship like the Normandy is a dream come true for me.”

“And I take it you don’t have a problem with the change in command?”

There was something in her eyes that made Yesmin’s stomach quiver. “Oh, I don’t have any problems serving under a woman,” she said casually; was it too casually? Was there a double meaning hidden there?

_You can’t date a subordinate on your crew, idiot._

She faltered for a moment, trying not to grin like a love struck fool at her. “That’s good to hear,” she said. “But I hope you realise you can come to me with any concerns, anything at all. I like to have an open door policy on my ship, so- anything comes up, you let me know.”

Ashley’s gaze turned back to the dismantled gun on the table, but her smile lingered. “I appreciate that, skipper,” she said, reaching for the oiled rag. “I’ll try not to abuse the privilege and come dashing up every time I find a poem that makes my knees weak.”

She was quite certain that her cheeks would give her away- they were burning. She was so entranced by the thought of Ashley coming to her room, weak kneed and flustered, that it took her a moment to acknowledge the rest of what she’d said.

“A poem?” she asked, somewhat dumbfounded. “You like poems?”

“Poetry, prose- I’m a sap for a good bit of writing.”

“Oh, that’s so... wow.” _Çok ayip, Yesmin, what are you even doing? Did you learn to talk only this morning?_ “I mean, I just never really expected-”

“To find a soldier with an appreciation for classical literature?” Ashley said wryly, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first.”

Yesmin stared blankly at her. “The first what?”

Ashley laughed, and Yesmin felt her heart soar in her chest. “The first to assume that just because I can peg you between the eyes at a hundred yards doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a well written poem.”

Her choice of the word _peg_ was rather unfortunate, and Yesmin felt her cheeks heating as she did her best to keep a straight face; if Ashley realised the irony of using such a word, she had better self control than her. 

“So do you uh... do you have any favourites?” she asked, leaning casually against the table, arms crossed over her chest. Casually professional but warmly approachable- that was what she was going for. From the way Wrex was laughing to himself and shaking his head across the hold, apparently she wasn’t doing a great job of it. 

As long as she didn’t have little hearts for eyes, she’d count it as a win. 

Ashley was grinning from ear to ear; it was obvious how dear the subject was to her. “Well, most of my favourites came via my dad- he used to read them to us, and now that he’s gone it’s sort of my special connection to him, I guess you’d say.” Her smile turned wistful. “I swear I can almost hear his voice sometimes, when I read them again.”

Yesmin felt a pang of grief in her chest. “I know that feeling,” she said softly. It’d been nearly eight years, but she still felt the loss of her own father keenly. The hole in her heart wasn’t quite so raw as it had been, but it was still an emptiness she carried with her. “Sometimes, when I’m planning our flight path, I can almost hear him teasing me for my equations.” 

Ashley laughed again- was she flirt laughing? Or was Yesmin reading into this far too much?- and nodded appreciatively, a rueful smile on her face. “God bless military dads, hey?”

Yesmin grinned sheepishly. “So your dad liked...?”

“Oh, all the old classics. Hemingway, Lawrence, Tennyson- that was his favourite. After all these years, I still know Ulysses from memory.”

The only poem she could think of was the one her babaanne had kept on the wall in the kitchen, something that her dede had used to woo her back when they were young and wildly in love; babaanne always recalled it so dreamily, memories of a dashing young man chasing after the heart of a shy young woman. In the years since dede had gone to Allah’s side, the stories had only grown more elaborate and adorable, and Yesmin knew the poem as easily as other children knew nursery rhymes.

She licked her lips nervously, and couldn’t help but notice when Ashley’s gaze flickered to her mouth momentarily. “I know some poetry myself, actually,” she said, hoping her false bravado came across as something significantly more suave and collected than it sounded to her ears. “Not a lot, mind you, but it’s something that was special to my grandparents.”

Ashley visibly perked up, delight coming into her eyes. “I’d love to hear it, if you don’t mind,” she said warmly. “It’s not often I find someone willing to talk about poetry without rolling their eyes or tuning out.”

Yesmin felt her stomach flip flop. “Sure, I can... remember it,” she said awkwardly, inwardly cringing. She cleared her throat as Ashley watched her expectantly. 

“Thinking of you is pretty, hopeful,” she began, the words as familiar to her as breathing. “It is like listening to the most beautiful song, from the most beautiful voice on earth...

“But hope is not enough for me any more, I don’t want to listen to songs anymore.” Her voice had grown soft. “I want to sing.”

The look in Ashley’s eyes just then was like witnessing her first sunrise after weeks shipboard. It left her awed and breathless, something warm and gentle easing through her at that look. 

She was a lost cause already.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, babbling, “that was rubbish.”

“What?” Ashley said, looking startled. “Oh, no, that was wonderful. You have such a wonderful natural rhythm.”

Her face heated even further. “Actually, I know it better in Turkish,” Yesmin said hesitantly. “And I’m never quite certain if the sentiment conveys itself the same in a different language.”

“Regardless, it’s beautiful,” Ashley said warmly. There was a twinkle in her eyes, a hint of mischief. “Can’t say I’ve ever had someone recite love poetry at me before. Maybe you’ll indulge me one day and let me hear the original?”

_Oh fuck, I just tried to woo a subordinate._

From nearby, she heard Wrex chuckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking of You, Nâzim Hikmet Ran, 1945  
> http://www.turkishclass.com/poem_91


	2. 2183: SSV Normandy

“It should have been me.”

Ashley’s words cut through her, the guilt and the shame and the panic no less overwhelming now than it had been on the ground. As a military Commander, her crew were her responsibility, but as a Spectre, she had greater obligations now. 

Her desires as a woman should have been listed close to last in the grand scheme of things, but the guilt seethed and rolled within her, clawing at her mercilessly. Had she made the right choice as a Commander, as a Spectre? 

“That decision was not yours to make, Williams,” she said, doing her best to sound stoic, to sound sure. To sound like a Commander. She could feel the eyes of the rest of the crew, the weight of their silence. Was it condemnation or sympathy that she felt from them, acceptance of Kaidan’s death or bitter disapproval?

Had she let her heart guide her judgement?

“But, sir, surely-”

The guilt morphed into an ugly, angry panic, terrified that her decision would be called into question, that her folly would be made public, that this brief and wonderful obsession would become something wretched. 

“The decision was made, Williams.” The words snapped out of her. “And not by you. The weight of it is on me, so unless you have a problem with my command...?”

Ashley sat stone still in her seat, her face ashen. Her eyes were red, as if she had wept in private, and Yesmin abruptly felt like the worst kind of monster. “Not at all, Commander,” she said quietly, her grief plain in her eyes despite her apparent determination to not give voice to it. “I apologise for interrupting.”

Yesmin quite determinedly turned her gaze away from her, looking to the crew each in turn. “We have suffered the loss of a friend and colleague,” she said quietly, willing away the tears, the mask of commander coming easily to her after so long. “And we will grieve for him, but for now we have a job to do. We’ve hurt Saren, but he’s not down yet- we have work to do, and if we let our pain over Kaidan’s death hinder our ability to do our job, well...” She straightened her shoulders. “We aren’t doing his memory any favours.”

“Speaking of memories,” Liara said hesitantly, climbing to her feet. “Shepard, you made contact with another beacon, and with the insight we gained from Sovereign as well, I believe we have an opportunity to finally get a step ahead- or at least, to level the field.”

“I’m all ears, T’soni,” Yesmin said, arms still crossed and shoulders tense. 

_Olmayacak duaya amin deme_. Don’t pray for something that will never come true- her father’s favourite saying. Right now she really badly wanted to pray for this day to be over, but...

“Amongst my people, we have a skill: the ability to join minds with another,” Liara said. “I believe that-”

Yesmin’s stomach lurched in embarrassment at the same time that Tali and Garrus burst out laughing behind her. 

Liara hesitated. “I appear to have made a humorous suggestion?” she said, clearly confused as she glanced between the three of them. 

Yesmin felt like her face was on fire. “I had an asari girlfriend a few years ago,” she said, her tongue several sizes too big for her mouth suddenly. “And I made a fool of myself on Feros because I thought Shiala was offering... well, I thought it was something you only did in private.” 

Liara’s confusion slowly gave way to amused embarrassment. “Oh, I... well... it can be?” Liara said clumsily; behind her, Wrex snorted in amusement and Liara laughed awkwardly. “I take it you’ve experienced a meld before?”

“You wouldn’t be _blushing_ , would you, Shepard?” Garrus said with a chuckle.

Frustratingly, the floor did not swallow her up like she prayed for so desperately. “I’ve already heard all your dumb jokes, Vakarian, so you can save them all for later.”

“I keep mine in a notebook so that I don’t forget them,” Tali said knowledgeably to Garrus. 

“You’re all getting fired out of the airlock tonight,” Yesmin muttered as she turned to face Liara. “You sure you know how to find what you’re looking for in my mess upstairs?”

Liara’s smile was awkward. “I don’t believe it should be a problem,” she said, placing her hands on Yesmin’s cheeks. Her eyes grew dark, so very dark and infinite and Yesmin felt as if she was slowly falling forward into an abyss.

And then-

Ancient metal and blood and dust and the vast emptiness between stars and more blood and the screaming of creatures she had no words for and the shriek of metal on metal and tearing metal and crunching metal and blood and blood and blood and-

“ _Shepard!_ ”

The shout wrenched her out of the vision, cutting through the endless cacophony of death and panic in her head, and it was so jarring that it felt like she’d slammed into a wall at high speed.

When she came back to herself a second or two later, the taste of metal and blood still in her mouth, the first face she saw wasn’t Liara at all, but Ashley. She was half out of her chair, a look of concern in her eyes as she reached for the two of them. Then Liara groaned and staggered back a step, and Yesmin’s attention snapped back to her.

“Oh, goodness, I-” Liara looked remarkably unwell. “That was more draining than I was expecting.”

Her head felt heavy, like it’d filled up with lead while she’d been out of it. “Get yourself to the medical bay,” Yesmin said, annoyed at how raspy her voice was. “We can discuss anything you may or may not have learned once you’re well again.”

“Are you alright, Commander?” Tali asked, a note of concern in her voice.

Yesmin touched a hand to her nose, wincing in annoyance when her fingers came away smeared with blood. “It’s nothing,” she said, trying to inject a measure of steel into her tone. Her crew looked unconvinced. 

“Commander...”

“That’s an order, T’soni,” she said to Liara, harsher now, ignoring Tali’s concern. “Get yourself to Doctor Chakwas and then we’ll talk.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand, and the blood was thick enough to drip from her fingers. “The rest of you, dismissed for now.”

Head held high, she stalked from the room. Her shoulders sagged with relief when she heard the door hiss closed behind her, only for tension to ripple down her spine when she heard it slide open again. 

“Commander,” Ashley called after her.

Yesmin clenched her teeth together and kept walking. 

“Commander, you really should be heading to the medical bay as well,” Ashley said, jogging up beside her. 

“I’m fine,” Yesmin snapped; her voice didn’t sound quite as ferocious as she would have liked, rather weak in fact, and the abrupt wobble in her legs that had her grabbing at the wall made her performance even less convincing. She felt Ashley’s hand beneath her elbow, helping to steady her, and her fingers were so very warm. “Alright, maybe fine is a bit of an exaggeration, but I absolutely-”

“Are being obstinate,” Ashley said firmly, her grip on her elbow tightening. “Listen, skipper, I helped raise three sisters- you aren’t likely to win an argument like this with me.”

“I am _older_ than you,” Yesmin said petulantly, but she let Ashley guide her carefully to the ground. 

“Doesn’t make you smarter,” Ashley muttered under her breath, crouching beside her and holding out a handkerchief. “Come on, if you sneeze you’ll recolour half the galley.”

Yesmin gave her a withering look and reluctantly accepted the handkerchief. She held the wad of fabric up to her nose, pinching the bridge with her other hand. 

Ashley watched her closely, then sighed and dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry about in there,” she said. “That was- that was unprofessional of me, and I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for you right now.” 

Yesmin mirrored her sigh and stared at the roof. “You’re good, Williams,” she said tiredly. “This is sort of out of my realm of experience too.”

“What, you?” Ashley said teasingly. “I thought you were naturally some kind of superwoman, never flinching in the face of monsters and giants and giant monsters.”

Yesmin batted her across the knee gently. “Nah, it takes work,” she said. “I’m taking a remote course in Superwoman Studies.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

Yesmin grimaced. “Oh, just _grand_ ,” she said, “we’ve already covered super strength and secret identities, but apparently the topic this week is collateral damage.”

Ashley was quiet, and then she dropped out of the crouch and lowered herself onto the floor, sitting beside Yesmin. “I suppose you need to write to Kaidan’s family,” she said. 

“He had a mom,” Yesmin said quietly. “Well, I mean, of course he had a mom, he didn’t spring up out of nowhere, it’s just-” She took a deep breath, tried to calm her babbling. “He talked about her from time to time. She was really proud of him.”

Ashley was silent for a moment, absorbing the words. “Is it wrong of me to want to write her?” she asked. “I mean, I feel like that’d be rubbing it in- sort of like ‘hi! Sorry I got to live while your kid kicked the giant nuclear bucket’.” 

“As long as you don’t actually say ‘kicked the giant nuclear bucket’, I’m pretty sure it’s okay.”

“What are you gonna say?” Ashley asked quietly.

Yesmin shifted uncomfortably, pulling the handkerchief away from her face to check the bleeding. “Oh the usual- your son was an esteemed member of the crew, will be missed, and so on and so on. I don’t know, I always hate it. Maybe I’ll throw in a poem or something, to make it more personal.”

“You said you didn’t know much poetry,” Ashley said.

Damn it. Trust her to pick up on a throwaway comment that she’d tossed out there just to make herself look more soulful or literate or whatever it was that poets were. “Oh, I know enough,” she said casually, racking her brains for inspiration. “I’m sure I have something tucked away for an occasion such as this.”

“Really,” Ashley said dubiously; it wasn’t even a question, for crying out loud. She was so certain she’d caught her out in the lie.

“Really,” Yesmin said.

“Oh, well, maybe you’d be willing to share something with me? You know, for inspiration- if I’m gonna write a letter to Alenko’s family too, I don’t want to accidentally use the same poem.”

“There are millions of poems in existence,” Yesmin said, stalling for time. “I’m pretty sure we won’t-” 

“Indulge me,” Ashley said, and the way she smiled told Yesmin exactly how much trouble she was in. 

“Okay,” she said slowly, “yeah I can do that.”

“Well go on then.”

“I will.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Okay fine!” She licked her lips nervously, pulling a face when she tasted blood. “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,” she said, staring straight ahead so that Ashley couldn’t see the look in her eyes. “Now it looks as though they’re here to stay- but I believe in yesterday.”

There was a moment of silence as the words hung between them, and then- 

“Shepard, was that a song?”

“No,” Yesmin said quickly, “it was a _poem_.”

“I’m pretty sure that was Yesterday by The Beatles,” Ashley said dryly.

“How do you even _know_ that off the top of your head, Williams? That song is at least two hundred-”

“Hah! So it _was_ The Beatles!”

Yesmin stuffed the handkerchief up against her nose again. “I’m not speaking to you.”

Ashley laughed delightedly, and for the first time in hours it seemed like some of the misery had lifted from her. Her shoulders didn’t droop quite so heavily, and the sparkle in her eyes was back. “So,” she said casually, a smile tweaking at the corner of her mouth, “you dated an asari.”

Yesmin huffed out a breath and let her head fall against the bulkhead. “Go on,” she said with resignation, “say it.”

Ashley chuckled, the sound warm and delicious. “Say what, skipper?”

Yesmin’s head rolled to the side, fixing Ashley with an amused stare. “I’m sure you’ve got something to say about bizarre alien fetishes or the like.”

“Actually I was going to say that if I’d known you were so daring with the people you dated, I would have made more noise before now,” Ashley said with a smile. “I mean, damn skipper, how does a bland little colony girl hold up against an asari?

Yesmin chuckled and closed her eyes. “I’ve got your bloodied handkerchief stuffed up my nose and I’ve been beat to hell and back by a psychotic turian, and you pull the moves now? Smooth, Williams.” 

“Hey, at least it’s memorable,” she said, grinning ruefully. “Just like The Beatles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday, The Beatles, 1965  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNnaxGFO18o


	3. 2183: SSV Normandy Captain's Quarters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
> Art by [pandabandanna](http://pandabandanna.tumblr.com/post/67749865877/your-kisses-are-like-poetry-or-bad-attempts-at)

Yesmin didn’t think she’d ever been this nervous in her entire life. Waiting to see if she’d been accepted into the ICT? That’d been a walk in the park compared to this. Hiding in the ruined buildings of Akuze and praying desperately for extraction? Seemed almost insignificant now. 

And she wasn’t even really sure what the worst of her nerves had been caused by- okay, the obvious answer would be the life or death situation she was facing, a race against time to stop a race of immortal tyrannical machines from destroying all life in the galaxy but hey, if she failed at that it wasn’t like anyone would be around to blame her for it. 

But of course there was the small matter of Ashley, and the fact that she’d somehow worked up the nerve to invite her back to her cabin that night.

Nothing like the threat of extinction of all life everywhere to compel a woman towards making a move on her crush. 

She’d made the offer, and now the ball- so to speak- was in Ashley’s court. 

“At least you didn’t just shout _would you like sex_ and then sprint for the door,” she muttered to herself as she tossed a datapad on the desk. She’d been trying to keep herself busy while she waited for Ashley to respond to her offer- oh for fuck’s sake she was making it out to be so illicit and scandalous, no wonder Williams hadn’t- 

“Good evening, skipper,” came an amused voice behind her, and Yesmin whirled about to find Ashley standing just inside the door to her room, a relaxed smile on her face and arms crossed over her chest. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything- you seemed to be having an interesting conversation just now.”

Yesmin groaned and ran a hand over her face. “I would just like the record to state that I would never just run into a room and shout _would you like sex_ and then run out again,” she said. “I might be little better than an inebriated puppy, but I do have some sense of style and decorum.”

Ashley laughed delightedly, and the sound put Yesmin a little more at ease. “The famed Commander Shepard, first human Spectre, actually a drunken puppy masquerading as a soldier- who knew?” 

“If my secret gets out, I’ll know who to blame, Williams,” Yesmin said with mock ferocity. 

“Ah, but I’ll be too rich from all the confessional tell-all interviews to care that much,” she said cheekily, coming a little closer and uncrossing her arms. 

“Oh, I see how it is. You’ll be schmoozing with the rich and the fabulous, leaving me to deal with the fallout and the court martials-”

Ashley’s expression made her feel stupidly giddy. “I could always swoop in to save the day, you know,” Ashley said archly, a grin on her face. “Buy you a fancy lawyer with all my scandalous money, spirit you away to some remote luxury location where the press can’t get your hands on you...”

“I’m liking this idea more and more. When do we start?”

Ashley laughed, and Yesmin finally relaxed. 

“So I thought a lot about what you said this afternoon,” Ashley said slowly, her fingers running slowly along the edge of the desk. Yesmin found herself fascinated by them, fascinated with the strength in her hands and the knowledge that those very hands had been used to bring death to countless beings, and yet... she knew just how gentle those hands could be in times of need, how warm they were and how soft they were despite the callouses she bore on each finger. “And I gotta say, I was tempted just to run straight up here without a second thought, but I...”

Yesmin’s heart lurched. “But?”

Ashley chewed on her lip, desire and indecision warring in her eyes. “But I was worried. About a lot of things- whether I was just doing something stupid because I thought this was the end, whether I was taking advantage of your feelings, whether it was the right thing to do to stay away, whether it was unprofessional...”

She squared her shoulders, and her smile turned into something that left Yesmin weak kneed. “But then I thought, what the hell, what about _my_ feelings? A beautiful woman who I respect and who makes me feel like I’m the most important person in the world just asked me to spend some quality time with her- why is this even a question?”

Yesmin, gripped by fear a moment earlier, nearly sank to the ground in relief. “So... you’re not just here to hear more of my poetry?” she asked weakly, trying for a joke. 

The way she moved forward, slow but confident, her smile hungry and her eyes confident, was electrifying. “Oh, we can have poetry if that’s what you want, Mina,” she said, and Yesmin found she was instantly smitten with the nickname. “If I don’t have you whispering desperate sonnets by the end of the night, I won’t have done my job right.”

“Believe me, there’s not really any way you could get it wrong at this point,” Yesmin whispered in the moment before their lips met. 

It was a moment she’d spent weeks fantasizing about, hours spent dreaming wistfully about Ashley’s mouth and how she would taste, the shape of her lips and how soft they would feel beneath hers. The moment did not disappoint. Ashley’s hand cradled her cheek gently, and the other went around her hip, tugging her closer, while Yesmin slipped hers down her back, hardly able to believe that Ashley Williams was here and she was kissing her and guiding her gently backwards towards the bed and-

Her knees hit the mattress and she toppled backwards onto the bed, staring breathlessly up at Ashley as she stood smugly over her. And then Ashley giggled and dropped onto the bed on her knees, crawling forward to meet her, leaning down over her and pressing her into the mattress as the kisses grew more heated. 

“I went and read a _lot_ of poems,” Yesmin said breathlessly between kisses. 

“Is that so?” Ashley said, settling comfortably over her, her thighs going tight around her hips. Yesmin was ridiculously frustrated with the fact that clothes did not in fact dissolve on command. “Good to see you did your homework.”

Ashley’s mouth on her neck was enough to have her whimpering. She swallowed and managed to choke out “I need some study sessions with the teacher though.”

“Oh, private tuition huh? Struggling with the subject matter?” She could feel Ashley smiling into the curve of her jaw and it made her shiver. 

“By subject matter are we still talking about poems or have we moved on to innuendo, because if it’s innuendo then you’d better bet I’m signing up for extra sessions.”

Ashley sat up, and pulled her shirt up over her head; Yesmin instantly ran her hands up over the smooth skin of her stomach, her breath catching in her chest as Ashley tipped her head back and moaned softly, arching into the touch like a cat. “I haven’t even seen how poor your skills are yet,” she said breathlessly, a grin on her face. “Let’s hear these poems of yours.”

“Something about summer and perfume,” Yesmin said, “and there were things about flowers and sunshine, and I don’t know, I don’t understand poetry at all.”

“Mmm,” Ashley said, taking Yesmin’s hand in hers and lifting her fingers to her mouth; Yesmin groaned and writhed beneath her as Ashley sucked gently on the tip of first one and then another finger. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

“Summer blooms and winter snows and the way the sun shines on snow and-”

Ashley was laughing as she slapped her hands away, grabbing at her wrists and pinning them back against the pillows. “Oh, we’ve got a lot of work to do, sweetheart,” she whispered, kissing her slowly. When her hands went to the hem of Yesmin’s shirt, Yesmin kept her hands up by the pillows and let her take charge. 

And beyond that, Yesmin found that it was rather impossible to worry about invasions from beyond the stars, or her imminent and very probably death, because how could she possibly concentrate on anything outside of the way Ashley felt in her arms, the way her body slid against hers so perfectly and the way she cried out so perfectly. 

For a woman so much smaller than herself, Ashley did not lack for steel, and Yesmin was delighted at the way she took charge, delighted at each soft cry her lover let out, at every moment of laughter they shared. 

The night was perfect, and Yesmin wanted it to last forever, but Ilos drew ever closer and duty demanded their presence eventually. Yesmin didn’t think she’d had a lick of sleep, but she didn’t damn well care, frankly. 

She lay on her side, watching Ashley as she caught her breath from their latest round. “Siz çok güzel, tatlim,” she whispered, tucking a stray lock of sweat soaked hair away from her eyes.

Ashley smiled, still panting as she levered herself up on one elbow, chest still heaving and her skin still glistening from their exertions. “What naughty things are you muttering at me now,” she asked, her fingers tracing gently over the curve of Yesmin’s lips. 

“I just said how beautiful you were,” Yesmin said, reaching up and twining her fingers through Ashley’s. “And tatlim means sort of... sweetheart. Sugar, honey, something like that.”

“Something like that, huh?” Ashley said with a grin, leaning in and kissing her slowly. “Good to see you’re still as eloquent as ever.”

Ilos was still a few hours away. 

The universe could wait a little longer for a hero.


	4. 2185: Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
> Art by [pandabandanna](http://pandabandanna.tumblr.com/post/67749865877/your-kisses-are-like-poetry-or-bad-attempts-at)

“Peripheral scans give us all clear, Commander,” Miranda said, flicking through the screens on her omni-tool. Before them, Horizon was eerily silent but for the faint crackle of burning buildings in the distance, and the occasional groan of sagging metal. The burnt orange sky was hazy, marred by smoke, and any native wildlife had sensibly fled well before their arrival. There were no bird calls, no children screaming excitedly as they played. 

Only death, and a painful silence that had Yesmin looking awkwardly over her shoulder every few seconds, out of some irrational primal fear that something was about to lunge at her. 

Although if the fear was well founded, did it still make it irrational?

Yesmin nodded grimly and wiped an aching hand over her brow. “Fan out, but remain within visual contact,” she said, gesturing to Mordin as he brought up the rear. Her eyes were stinging from the smoke, and something had landed a fairly solid blow against her ribs- she had her suspicions that something might be broken. “Just because the ship has gone doesn’t mean we might not be left with hostile stragglers. Our priority now is locating and assisting any survivors-”

“Our priority is the mission, Shepard,” Miranda called, coming up beside her with that enviably grace of hers.

Frustration bubbled up within her. “Survivors, Lawson,” she said, taking petty satisfaction in the fact that Miranda had not escaped unscathed- there was a smear of blood and soot on her cheek, enough that Yesmin had to wonder how anything had gotten past her powerful biotic shields. It made her feel less storkish and gangly in comparison to see Miranda with her hair askew occasionally. “Don’t make me say it twice.”

She didn’t even see a flicker of irritation from her XO. “Of course, Commander,” Miranda said, reaching up delicately to swat away a bug near her face, apparently unperturbed by the shallow cut across her cheek, “but we are on a time limit.”

“This is our first contact with the Collectors, Lawson, and it’s too big an opportunity to pass up,” Yesmin called back, wincing a little and putting a hand to her side as she stooped to pick up one of the swarming bugs, flailing weakly on the ground. She picked it up hesitantly, holding it away from her at an arm’s length. “Mordin, take whatever samples you need, but we _are_ going to help these people before we-”

“Shepard?” The voice was incredulous, but unmistakable, and Yesmin’s heart stilled for a moment as the words froze on her tongue. 

She turned around slowly, and found herself face to face with another soldier, her figure painfully familiar and her face even more so. “Ashley?” she whispered, finding it suddenly ridiculously hard to breathe. Her throat didn’t want to work, her lungs trapped behind ribs that seemed to be tightening. She swallowed with some difficulty and lifted her visor so that she could view her without hindrance. “Ashley, is that you?”

The Illusive Man had warned her, and she hadn’t wanted to believe him. Yesmin hadn’t wanted to think for even a moment that Ashley might have been at risk from the Collectors, and even less about the implication that Ash might have been bait- for her, or for the servants of the Reapers, she didn’t know.

She hadn’t wanted to think about it. 

When she took a step forward, hand reaching forward to touch her to confirm that she was in fact real and warm and wonderfully alive, Ashley’s gun came up instantly. “Don’t take another step,” she said, her voice only wobbling slightly. “Identify yourselves.”

Yesmin blinked in surprise. “Ashley, you _know_ me,” she said slowly, as if she were speaking to a small child, “what are you doing?”

The gun’s aim did not waver for even a second. “I am performing my duty as an officer in the Alliance,” she said fiercely, her voice so cold that Yesmin felt a miserable shiver pass down her spine. “And you are ordered to identify yourselves immediately.”

Staring somewhat disbelievingly, Yesmin said “Commander Yesmin Shepard, Council Spectre and Commander of the Cerberus vessel Normandy.” She gestured carefully over her shoulder. “My second in command is Miranda Lawson, and that there is Mordin Solus, our resident scientist.”

Miranda and Mordin offered up awkward greetings, but Ashley didn’t drop the gun. “So it’s true,” she said bitterly, ignoring the both of them. “I’d heard rumours, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Believe what?”

“That you were working for Cerberus,” she said, finally flicking the safety back on and lowering her aim. “Guess I was an idiot to place so much faith in you.”

The accusation took a few seconds to sink in, and then Yesmin reeled back as if Ashley had physically struck her. “I’m... wait, what does that even mean? What are you even _doing_ here?”

“We had word that Cerberus was going to make another move against one of our colonies, and we wanted to intercept before-”

“Woah, woah, hold up.” Yesmin gestured at the violence around them, the smoking buildings and the helpless colonists still frozen in place amongst the splattered remains of the Collectors. Somewhere behind her, Miranda and Mordin were wisely keeping quiet. “You think that we- _that I_ \- had something to do with this?”

Ashley threw her arms out in a gesture that seemed to indicate disgust. “Well what the hell do you think it looks like, Shepard?” she snapped. “The Alliance had advanced warning that we had a colony under threat from Cerberus, and wouldn’t you know it- here you are, and the colony has been all but wiped out.”

“I had nothing to do with this,” Yesmin snarled. “I was here to _stop this_ from happening!”

“I’m supposed to believe that the organisation that we caught on multiple occasions testing brutal alien technology on civilians didn’t have anything to do with this? Yet another instance of civilians being caught up in some scheme involving-”

Yesmin felt like she was going to be ill. “And you would immediately write me off, assume I’d be involved in something so nefarious? Do you know me at _all_ , Williams?”

From the corner of her eye, she could see Miranda and Mordin quite sensibly retreating; Mordin appeared to be making a great show of inspecting the fallen collector swarmers. 

“The woman I knew wouldn’t stand for this,” Ashley said coldly. “She would have told Cerberus precisely where to stick it and she would have jumped ship at the first opportunity.”

Angry and frustrated, Yesmin snapped “What, so the fact that I’ve come back to a world where my name is a laughing stock and everyone thinks I’m crazy, and nobody stood by my claims about the Reapers- I should just happily go along with that and let them talk down to me and stand by while the Reapers invade without opposition? Is that what I should do?”

“People _listen_ when you talk, Shepard, so don’t god damn pretend that your only option is a terrorist organisation that tried to kill you,” Ashley snarled back. “You shout jump and people ask how high, so don’t insist that we’ve forced your hand.”

“You seem to be holding an awful big grudge over something that happened to _me_ , not you,” Yesmin said pointedly. “Akuze was my bridge to get over, not yours Williams. Don’t pretend that you’re angry on my behalf-”

“Oh, what, so I _shouldn’t_ be angry that someone tried to kill the woman I loved?” Ashley said incredulously. “I should just be fine with the fact that they had you in their control for over two years without interference? I should just accept that this-” She gestured angrily to her “-is you, and not just some clone or robot copy and that you haven’t been brainwashed?” 

As if she hadn’t asked herself that a thousand times daily since she’d awoken on that laboratory table; as if she hadn’t sat and stared at herself in the mirror each night, looking for a hint of discrepancy, looking for proof of her own falsehood. As if she hadn’t stared at her empty fishtank in the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep as she wondered how this could possibly be God’s plan for her. 

She made it sound as if it’d been an easy decision for her. 

“I’m doing good, Ashley,” she said, the fear and the misery she’d been fighting these last few months all but paralysing her. “I’m doing the good that needs to be done- and no one else will let me do it.”

“With all respect, sir, we both know that’s bullshit.”

“What do you _want_ me to say, Ashley,” she whispered, choking on the words. She wanted to shout and rage, she wanted to stand tall and proud and sure of herself. “Tell me what you need me to say and I’ll say it.”

The pain and the anger in Ashley’s eyes was worse than a knife buried in her chest. “There’s nothing you can say,” she said stiffly, loudly. 

“Tatlim-”

“ _No_ ,” she snarled fiercely, her cold stone mask slipping again, “no, you don’t get to call me that. Not now.”

“Then tell me what I _can_ say,” Yesmin said desperately, hysterical sobbing bubbling up in her throat. “What words are allowed to me?”

“It’s too late for words, Mina,” she said, and Yesmin felt like a monster for hoping that she saw tears in her eyes. “You can’t make excuses for what this is.”

“I’m not trying to make excuses, I’m trying to talk to you!” 

“And you’re only doing it because I’m standing in front of you with a gun!” Ashley said, and there was no mistaking the fact that she was crying now. “If nothing is wrong, if you aren’t Cerberus’ pet, why didn’t you try contacting me before now? A message, a warning, anything- anything would have been better than silence.”

“Ashley, I-”

“But it was easier for you to ignore the problem than confront it, wasn’t it?” she said, wiping the tears away from her cheeks quickly. “Because that’s what you do- you run away from problems when you don’t want to deal with them. You ran away from your N7 training when your dad died, and you ran away from your post after Akuze. You think you’re doing the right thing, but you know you’re not- otherwise you would have contacted me, or your mom. The fact that you didn’t send word to either of us speaks volumes.”

Yesmin choked back the worst of her tears- Ashley and her mom had kept in touch after her death? Her mother and her love, mourning her together? “Maybe I didn’t know what to say,” she forced out. “Maybe I was afraid of all the things you just accused me of.”

They stared at each other across the ruins of the colony, the wind echoing hollowing in the wrecked buildings, no voices or birdcalls to give the planet life. There was death and despair here, a broken world, broken dreams of a better life- and Yesmin felt her heart wither and die, black and burned and lifeless like the colony. 

“Ashley,” she whispered, hiccuping on her tears, “tatlim-” 

Ashley’s aggrieved moan barely carried on the wind. “Give me one reason to believe, Yesmin,” she said on a whisper. There was so much heartbreak in her, so much anger and hurt and grief, and Yesmin felt all of it so very keenly. “Look at this from my eyes, and tell me what I should be seeing. Tell me how to believe.”

“I... I can’t do that.” As Ashley began to turn away, she took a panicked step forward, her hand going out as if she meant to snare her by the elbow and drag her back. “But I can say, the month we had together was one of the happiest times in my life. And... and I know that, to you, that was a long time ago, over two years, but-”

She swallowed, trying to keep the tears contained. “But for me, it was only a few weeks ago. And you’ve had time to grieve and you’ve had time to move on, and I... haven’t. So how was I supposed to say anything when I’m still just as in love with you now as I was then, but you’ve lived two years without me and I don’t even know if I’m still me at all?”

Ashley put her rifle away, clicking it back onto the support on her armour, and turned her back on them.

“You’d best get out of here,” she said hollowly. “The Alliance won’t take kindly to your presence here.”


	5. 2186: Huerta Memorial Hospital, Citadel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

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> 
>  
> 
> Art by [pandabandanna](http://pandabandanna.tumblr.com/post/67749865877/your-kisses-are-like-poetry-or-bad-attempts-at)

The constant, quiet beep of the heart monitor was weirdly comforting, in a way. It was proof, proof that she still had time, that she could still make things right again. She hadn’t lost everything- as long as Ashley was alive, she had a chance.

Coming back from the dead hadn’t been such a big deal for her last year, so surely Ashley- a woman she counted as a titan, a queen amongst women- would have no trouble with it. She wasn’t even dead, for crying out loud.

Ashley was going to wake up. It’d be fine. 

Clearing her throat past the lump of emotions that had begun to build there, Yesmin wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sat forward, reaching for the book she’d left on the side table last time she’d been to visit. She’d searched everywhere on the Citadel for a copy of anything by Tennyson, and she’d sent up several desperate prayers until she’d stumbled across a tattered old Complete Works down at a book cart in the markets down in the Wards. 

The volus who owned the cart had seemed far too sure of himself when he’d told her the exorbitant price, but she’d paid it without bartering. Books were hard to come by out in these parts even when there wasn’t an intergalactic war going on, and like hell if she was going to give up an opportunity like that. What else was she supposed to do, download a copy of all his poems onto her omni-tool and then steal a printer in the embassy? 

Actually, did the Normandy even have a printer? That seemed like something she should know. 

She picked up the book and turned the pages carefully, flipping through until she found the colourful bookmark keeping her place. She cleared her throat behind her fist, trying to limit the noise. 

“And ask ye why these sad tears stream?” she began, her voice soft so as not to disturb Ashley’s sleep. “Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping? I had a dream- a lovely dream, of her that in the grave is sleeping.”

She stopped and read back over the paragraph; she glanced at Ashley and then quickly skimmed through the rest of the poem. “Well, that’s... depressingly relevant,” she muttered. “Maybe we’ll skip that one and go onto another.”

“Living up to your namesake, skipper?” came a raspy voice, and her head snapped up. “Teacher won’t be happy about that, skipping the test material.”

Yesmin lunged forward as Ashley’s eyes cracked open, her face twisted with pain as she shifted in the bed. “ _Ash_ \- I mean, Williams,” she said, trying not to sound hysterically happy to have her conscious again. “You’re awake!”

Ashley blinked blearily. “You say that like you were expecting the opposite,” she said hoarsely, sounding to all intents and purposes as if she was only half awake anyway.

Yesmin laughed shakily. “I was expecting you to be obstinate at the very least,” she said, “put up a fight. Do you want me to call the doc in?”

“I’m fine,” Ashley said with a grimace, “although a little water couldn’t hurt.” 

“And the most unconvincing performance of the century goes to,” Yesmin said pointedly, but she put the book down and helped Ashley to sit up so that she could sip at the water left on her bedside table. Ashley grimaced as she drank, but she managed a couple of mouthfuls; she was panting softly by the time Yesmin helped her to lie back in the bed, and she all but deflated once she was safely against the pillows again. 

“Thanks, skipper,” she said wearily, trembling slightly from the exertion. She was pale beneath the bruises, and fragile in a way that tore at Yesmin’s soul. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here when I woke up.”

The confession, offered up with hesitancy and more than a little bitterness, hurt her more than she wanted it to. “There isn’t any place I’d rather be than right here, Ashley,” she said softly. 

Ashley didn’t respond immediately, and with her eyes closed, Yesmin began to believe she’d fallen asleep again. 

“Shepard, I can’t...”

Yesmin actually felt her heart wither in her chest, cringing inwards as it collapsed in on itself. “Yeah, Ash?”

“It’s been three years,” she said quietly. “And we didn’t exactly part on the best terms last time we saw each other. I guess I’m just... I’m struggling to understand what it is exactly driving you to stay here.”

Outside the doors to her room, Huerta bustled and seethed, vastly under equipped and understaffed for the crisis they were facing right now. Hell, the whole galaxy was under equipped for what they were all facing; Yesmin wanted to find it in her heart to sympathize with them, but the truth was that she had no spare energy for sympathy. It’d taken everything she had not to just lock herself away after the first wave of attacks and refuse to help.

But then she’d never been one to just sit and wait for death to come for her. 

Yesmin rubbed tiredly at her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “I don’t have a good answer for you, Ash,” she said. “Or at least, nothing that seems logical or sensible or doesn’t leave me looking half stark raving mad.”

“Well, I’m not really going anywhere,” Ashley said hesitantly. “So if ever you were hoping for a captive audience, now’s a great time.” 

They lapsed into silence, Yesmin considering her words carefully and Ashley giving her the space to think. 

Yesmin finally cleared her throat and leaned forward, staring at her hands as they hung between her knees. “It was you, tatlim,” she said softly. “It was always going to be you- I’d be here if you were just a friend, just a soldier under my command, but the truth is-”

“Mina,” Ashley said quietly.

She barrelled onwards; if she stopped now, she’d lose her nerve, and she’d never find the strength to force the words out. “I just want you to know that I...” She swallowed down her grief and her hurt. “I never stopped loving you. Not even after Horizon. And I’ll completely understand if you’ve moved on, or if you need time to think, but I had to be honest about the way that I felt.”

Ashley held her gaze for a moment, then two, and then her eyes slipped shut and she sighed, rolling onto her back. “You always were one for impeccable timing, Shepard,” she murmured wearily.

Yesmin laughed once. “Just don’t tell anyone that I’ve got a thing for end of the world situations,” she said. “A girl has to have some mysteries.”

Her heart soared when Ashley laughed as well, the sound cut off with a pained cough. “Far be it from me to spread such slanderous rumours,” she said, eyes still closed. “Someone else might try to take advantage of such a weakness and next thing I know I’ll be turning on the screen in here to see you splashed across the gossip pages sitting in some asari’s lap.”

“I swear, the fate of the galaxy depends on me being on her lap,” Yesmin said without missing a beat.

“Oh, so you already have someone in mind?”

“No, but I’m curious to try it, just to see who still has the resources to keep a gossip page running, of all things.” 

Ashley laughed again, softly, and Yesmin smiled in relief. It was such a silly little thing, a memory of teasing in easier times, but Yesmin was so grateful to her for the reference. She still had hope to cling to.

“What were you reading before?”

“Hmm? Oh, it was just...” She reached over and took the book from the bedside table, setting it down carefully on the bed beside Ashley’s hand. “Just a little something for you while you’re stuck in bed.”

Ashley heaved herself awkwardly onto one elbow, half sitting as she reached for the book. The way the light came into her eyes, the closest thing to pure unadulterated joy that Yesmin had seen in a long time, was a balm that she hadn’t realised she’d needed. 

“You got me a present?” Ashley asked delightedly, fingers tracing almost reverentially over the cover of the book. Yesmin had a moment of untimely arousal, staring at her fingers and remembering how warm they were, how gentle they could be and how wretchedly teasing. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I just remember how bored I was when I was cooped up in Vancouver, and the circumstances are a little different but I thought...”

Ashley’s fingers stilled on the cover, and she glanced up at her. “I’m sorry about Vancouver,” she said softly. “Not coming to see you, I mean. The Admiralty Board was going for the media blackout with you, but they were willing to allow private meetings- Anderson contacted me about it, and well...”

Yesmin twisted her fingers together in her lap, to stop herself from reaching out to touch her. “I get it,” she said, although a part of her really didn’t. She wanted to shout from the top of the Presidium that she would have walked barefoot across a river of lava for Ash, once upon a time, and so there was a dark and aching part of her that resented her hesitance. 

“I get that,” she repeated, and laughed once. “Mom didn’t come to visit either, so it’s not like you were the only one.” 

“Mina, I’m not sure-” She hesitated, and Yesmin hung breathless as she waited for her to continue, staring at her hands so that she didn’t have to watch the indecision flicker over Ashley’s face. 

The sigh was soft, and it was enough for her to hold onto for now. It wasn’t a promise, or a declaration of love, but there was something... something in the sound that offered her hope.

“Shouldn’t you be out fighting a war?” Ashley asked finally, breaking the silence as she fidgeted in the bed, settling back against the pillow, lines of pain around her mouth. 

“We’re stuck up trying to get enough supplies to head out again,” Yesmin said, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. “Should get the call in the next few hours, but everything’s a bit chaotic at the moment.” She flashed a winning smile. “Plus, I can hardly take to the field without my best soldier, now, can I?”

Ashley smiled briefly. “That’s an endorsement I’m happy to take any day,” she said wearily. “But I’m pretty sure the universe can’t wait for me.”

“I’d wait for you,” Yesmin said quietly.

Ash’s quiet “I know you would,” made her heart soar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And ask ye why these sad tears stream, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 19th c  
> http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/atennyson/bl-aten-andask.htm


	6. 2186: Normandy SR-2 Captain's Quarters

The whispers made no sense, and the fog felt like it was dragging at her ankles, trying to pull her down. The whispers got under her skin, panicked and heartbroken and pleading and she couldn’t tell which direction they were coming from, or what they were saying, only that the voices were like ice.

They _hurt_ , the voices, like the scrape of a frozen knife on the inside of her skull. And she wanted to help them so badly, if only to stop the pain, but every time she drew closer to the figures in the mist they vanished, nothing but a shadow in the dark. 

She came awake with a start, heart hammering in her chest painfully, breathing shallowly as she waited for the dream to untangle from her thoughts and her common sense to come back to her. Confusion had her in its grasp, and the fear was still thick in her veins, and she couldn’t work out exactly where she was to begin with, or why her arm hurt so-

Oh, she was lying on it. She winced and rolled onto her back, clenching and unclenching her fist as she waited for the blood to rush back to her fingers. She was lying on the couch in her quarters, datapad still within arm’s reach, reports scattered over the coffee table. 

The last thing she remembered was trying to consolidate the reduced fleet numbers with the limited supply lines- no wonder she’d fallen asleep. 

The clock over by her bed was glowing softly in the darkness, four minutes after ten, and as she groaned and heaved herself upright the cabin lights came on dimly, responding to her movement. Her mouth tasted like death and her head was aching from the nightmares; as exhausted as she was, she didn’t fancy heading straight back to bed. The lingering fear from the dreams was enough to have her shiver once, skin crawling, and she stumbled to her feet and over to the room control panel.

With the heat turned up, she leaned forward, resting her arm against the cold steel and her head against her arm. She was so very, very tired- tired of fighting, tired of nightmares, tired of standing and smiling for the cameras and spouting hopeful speeches for the sake of the people. 

“Allah, you test your faithful,” she murmured, before she sighed and pushed off the wall and wandered towards the bathroom. 

She felt like lukewarm hell, but she wasn’t particularly keen on a shower; she splashed her face with water and rubbed at her eyes until they stung. Some of it dribbled past her collar and under her shirt, and she shivered.

She’d just started brushing her teeth when she heard the smooth hiss of her cabin door open, and the slight change in pressure that pushed at her eardrums. EDI must have seen she was moving about and assumed it was alright to allow people access. She would have sighed tiredly if her mouth wasn’t full of foam, but instead she tossed the hand towel over her shoulder and stuck her head out of the bathroom to see who’d be trying to visit at this hour of the night.

 _Please don’t let it be more bad news._

She stumbled to a halt when she came face to face with Ashley, her hair loose and soft and her face just as tired and weary as she felt. But she was still beautiful, still a fighter, and just the sight of her was still enough to make Yesmin feel weak kneed and clumsy. 

They hadn’t really spoken about anything more than trivial things since Ash’s stay at Huerta. The Cerberus coup attempt had put yet another unnecessary strain on their relationship, and Yesmin had begun to resign herself to the fact that maybe it was time to close the door on her hopes. 

Ashley might have seemed like the right woman for her, but they sure as hell never had the right timing. 

She chose that moment to glance towards her, the distracted expression on her face turning to embarrassment when she spotted her. “Oh, sorry skipper, I didn’t realise you were headed for bed,” Ashley said, datapad in hand. “I can come back...”

Yesmin waved her hand absently in her direction. “Not bed,” she managed, the words garbled by the toothbrush. “Just woke up.”

Ashley stared at her. “Okay, I heard that as ‘ _no bear juice woap_ ’, so-”

“No, no, no!” Yesmin ducked back into the bathroom and spat quickly into the sink. Wiping her face on the towel as she swung back around the corner, she said “I said, not bed, just woke up. How did you get bear juice out of that?”

“Well actually, I was wondering where you were keeping a bear on this ship,” Ashley said, cracking a smile.

“James doesn’t count?”

Ash raised an eyebrow. “Are you gonna look me in the eye and tell me that you honestly just talked about Vega and bear juice without a trace of irony?”

It took a few more moments for the penny to drop, and then Yesmin let out a choking noise; that was all it took for Ashley to be bent over double, howling with laughter at the look of horror on Yesmin’s face. 

Yesmin rubbed at the back of her neck, painfully aware of how hot her face was from the rush of blood. “Okay, well, aside from embarrassing myself by accidentally stumbling into gay innuendo, what can I do for you Williams?”

“Actually I’m here on Steve’s behalf- he has some concerns about the Kodiak after Despoina and needed to requisition more of the budget for repairs.”

She held out the datapad to Shepard, who shook her head. “He knows he doesn’t have to ask permission for something like that,” she said.

Ashley gave her a knowing look. “He may not have to ask permission, but the money has to come from somewhere,” she said pointedly. “You have to sign off on the budget changes.”

“There’s a reason I’m in the engineering corp and not in accounts,” Yesmin said; she finally took the datapad and flicked through the screen until she found the place waiting for her e-sig. She sighed. “Although, knowing my luck, I’d be the first Spectre Accountant in the history of the Council.”

“Crunching numbers, saving lives,” Ashley said with a deadpan expression, taking the datapad back. “Thanks for that, skipper.”

“Any time,” Yesmin said, smiling wearily.

Then, to her surprise, Ashley hesitated; she’d expected her to turn tail and run the moment she had what she needed. It was just easier for both of them, it seemed, if they kept their conversations casual.

Instead, Ashley took a step closer, concern in her eyes. “You doing okay, skipper?” she asked gently. “You look... not great.”

Yesmin felt her stomach turn over unhappily. “Oh, you know, I guess the pressure of galactic annihilation is beginning to get to me a little,” she said, laughing shakily. She crossed her arms, and then slipped them lower to wrap around her waist, as if she were hugging herself. “Some days it’s a little hard to believe in, well... anything.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

She felt awkward; she didn’t know what to do with her hands, what to do with her face. Should she just blurt out all her secret fears, or should she turn the other cheek and smile wearily and keep on keeping on, just like she had with everyone else in this damned galaxy?

“I...” She trailed off when Ashley stepped closer again and took her by the hand; a weak protest pushed up within her, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to voice it. Instead she followed meekly as Ash led her back to the couch she’d been so recently snoring on and coaxed her to take a seat. 

Ashley dropped down next to her, close enough that their knees were almost touching, but far enough away to make Yesmin wonder if the distance was deliberate. “Have you been eating properly?” she asked, expression earnest. “Because you don’t look like you’re sleeping well.”

Yesmin ran her hands through her hair. “Eating, eating...” she mused, making an effort to look deep in thought. “Lemme think... what day is it again?”

Ashley had a cushion in hand in the blink of an eye, and batted her with it before she could throw her arms up to guard. Yesmin’s startled yelp was enough to make Ashley burst out laughing again, and after a moment Yesmin joined her, cautious at first but with growing relief. 

It felt good, to laugh with her again. It felt like the old days, so many years ago now- those far off days when they were young and invincible and had stared death in the face and come out fighting. 

They were older now, wearier, and the lattice of scars on her skin mapped a different road to the one they’d travelled together. 

_Great, now she’d made herself miserable again._

She sighed. “My fish are dead,” she said gloomily, as a distraction to cover her mood change.

Ashley glanced over at the tank, and though she tried valiantly not to, Yesmin could see the smile that crept over her face. “They will be mourned, like all great warriors,” Ashley said solemnly, “lost in a fight they could not possibly hope to win.”

Yesmin threw the cushion at her head, and she expertly dodged it, grinning hugely. “Theirs was never a battle for glory and victory,” she continued, melodramatic to the max, “but merely for survival. Their names will be lost with the passage of time, but the fundamental principles that they fought for will not.”

“Did you just compare me murdering my fish to the Reapers wiping out all life in the galaxy?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, skipper,” Ashley said with a remarkably straight face. 

“Jerk,” Yesmin muttered, still smiling. 

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and then Ashley nudged the pile of old paperbacks on the coffee table in front of them. “Studying up for the final exam, Mina?”

Yesmin felt her face burn almost instantly. “Oh, that’s... it’s nothing.”

But Ashley was already leaning forward; she grabbed a handful of them and pulled them back onto her lap. “The Collected Works of John Keats,” she read aloud, a grin on her face already. “Verses and Essays of Virginia Woolf.”

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” she fumbled, trying to get them out of sight.

Ashley made a strange hiccuping noise that sounded half like a laugh and half like a gasp. “The Erotic Omnibus of Sapphic Poetry? Mina, where do you even _find_ these things?”

“I _absolutely_ didn’t steal that last one from Sam’s quarters.”

Ashley howled with laughter again. “I can just picture you, furiously taking notes, highlighting sections.” She laughed again. “Well, highlighting whatever sections Sam hasn’t left notes on herself.”

Yesmin felt her stomach lurch uncomfortably, and she glanced away. When she didn’t answer, Ash glanced over at her. “Did I say something wrong?”

She huffed out a sigh. “It’s just... okay, this is really awkward. And maybe creepy.”

“Creepy is giant sentient robots trying to consume all life in the galaxy, Mina. I’m pretty sure it’s fine.”

“You say that now, before you know,” Yesmin said grumpily. She ran her hands through her hair. “Okay, well... I sort of threw myself into poetry while I was awaiting trial- it wasn’t like I had anything else to do- and it became a way for me to hold onto you and to hold onto hope and to survive the immense banality of being cooped up in detention...” 

When Ashley didn’t say anything, she continued. “It’s probably not healthy,” she said ruefully, tossing one of the books back towards the cluttered desk, “but it definitely kept me sane on some of the worst nights.”

Ashley shifted on the couch, staring at the empty fishtank. “I dunno, skipper,” she said slowly, "I’m no shrink, but I would’ve thought that something keeping you sane would be considered pretty healthy by most people.”

Yesmin gestured vaguely into the air. “Yeah, but...” She tipped her head back against the couch, staring at the viewport in the roof. Overhead, the stars soared past, bright and cold and magnificent. “Okay, this is really hard to explain.”

“Take your time- I’m not going anywhere.”

Yesmin was silent for a few minutes, trying to collect her thoughts into something coherent. “The idea of you, of you as this... _perfect woman_ and this perfect love that we had, it kept me going long after I would have given up. And I built you up into this impossible pinnacle of womanhood, this ideal that couldn’t possibly exist and that was disturbingly obsessive and ridiculously cruel to you and didn’t help anyone, because I was clinging to something that didn’t exist and ignoring everything that was around me-”

“But that’s not necessarily true,” Ashley said. “If that were true, you would have done everything to get back in my good graces, and instead you stood by what you believed in despite how much it hurt both of us.”

Yesmin gritted her teeth, blinked away the hot tears that appeared in her eyes. “You don’t exactly make it sound _pleasant_.”

“Well, I wouldn’t really call it pleasant? I don’t know about you, but I bawled my eyes out for days after Horizon.” Ashley shifted uncomfortably. “You aren’t the only one guilty of romanticising an ideal of the other. You were Shepard- saviour of the Citadel, first human Spectre. You fought legends and myths and when you smiled at me it was like seeing the sun for the first time after an endless winter.”

“Here I was thinking I was the only one capable of bad poetry.”

Ashley wagged her finger in her direction with a mock serious expression on her face. “I’ve been _practicing_ , Mina,” she said. “Couldn’t have you upstaging me all the time.”

Yesmin smiled tiredly. “Have to up my game, do I?”

The conversation fell into a lull again, the two of them lying together on the couch. Close enough to touch, if Yesmin could just work up the courage to reach out to her. 

“I’m really proud of you for making Spectre, by the way,” she said softly. “You know, just in case you were worried I’d be jealous or something weird. I was so happy for you when you told me.”

“I don’t think you have the capacity for something like jealousy, Mina,” Ashley said, “there’s too much goodness in you.”

“You’d be the only one who thought so,” she said, laughing once. When Ashley didn’t answer, she glanced over at her, her stomach flip flopping at the pensive look on her face.

“Hey,” she said hesitantly, reaching out and taking Ashley’s hand in hers. “Thanks for keeping me company for a few hours. I really needed the distraction.”

Ashley stared at her for a few long moments, and then she climbed onto her knees on the couch, leaned forward and kissed her. Yesmin gasped softly, her hand tightening around Ashley’s on reflex, and she felt her smile against her mouth, lips soft as they brushed over hers. 

When Ash slid onto her lap, arms going around her neck as she kissed her, it felt like coming home. 

___

In the early hours of the morning, when Yesmin stirred and found Ashley still sleeping quietly beside her in bed, it was as if the past few years had never happened. She didn’t have to worry about nightmares, she didn’t have to think about an unwinnable war- all that mattered was that she had the woman she loved beside her, and the rest could come after.

“You should go back to sleep and stop staring,” Ashley muttered into the pillow, not opening her eyes. 

Yesmin couldn’t help but smile. “Didn’t think you were awake,” she said softly.

“You certainly did your best to tire me out that’s true,” she replied, reaching out blindly and lacing her fingers through hers.

“If we survive this,” Yesmin murmured, her fingers on her free hand tracing softly over Ashley’s collarbone, “can we make this more... permanent?”

“Is that a proposal, skipper?” Ashley asked drowsily, a sleepy smile on her lips.

Yesmin watched her eyelashes flutter closed. “It could be,” she said softly. “If you wanted it to be.”


	7. 2187: Epilogue

“I just wanted to say a few words before everyone gets stuck into the dancing and the alcohol,” Ashley said, almost standing on her tiptoes to reach the microphone until James gracefully stepped forward and adjusted the stand for her. “Just a little moment before you all become hooligans.”

Her words were met with groans, and she held her hand up to waggle her finger in a disapproving motion; her face though, was radiant. She hadn’t stopped smiling all day.

Yesmin had never seen a more beautiful sight in her life. 

“I remember you all at the party at our apartment before the war,” she said pointedly, the aim of her finger landing rather accusingly in the direction of Javik and then Tali. 

“You weren’t exactly a paragon of sobriety yourself, Williams,” someone called, someone who sounded suspiciously like Tali. 

Yesmin leaned forward at the main table and nabbed the other microphone. “No one is allowed to say bad things about my beautiful wife’s alleged state of inebriation except me,” she said. “First rule of Shepard’s Law.” 

“Damn right it is,” Ashley said, throwing a wink her way. The banter was met with chuckles and whistles. “But if I can steal a moment of your time, I’d just like to say a little something to my darling wife.”

More laughter from the room, affectionate and warm. 

“As we all know by now, the lovely Yesmin Shepard is somewhat of an aficionado when it comes to poetry,” Ashley said, throwing a mischievous glance in the direction of her wife as the room erupted in hoots of laughter and cheering. Yesmin groaned and covered her eyes with a hand. “And, in honour of her great love of the craft, I went searching for the most sublime poem ever written, something that captured the essence of our great love and the immensity of the feelings I possess for this magnificent woman.” 

She had a champagne glass in one hand, and she half turned to Vega, who handed her a sheet of paper. Oh hell, the two of them had collaborated- this wasn’t going to go well for her, she could tell.

Ashley cleared her throat dramatically and on the wall behind her appeared a projection of two little illustrated ducks on a pink background. “All we need is you and me, to be as happy as can be,” she said in a sing song voice, to the uproarious approval of the room. “And no matter where I go, I will always love you so.”

“Is this a children’s book or a teenage love poem?” Yesmin's mother, looking resplendent in her formal uniform, leaned forward with a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. 

“I have no idea.”

“I didn’t realise your lovely wife had such a flare for the dramatic,” Admiral Hannah Tilki said, laughing at the look of dismay on Yesmin’s face. “Cheer up, tatlim, it runs in the family- it wouldn’t be a Shepard wedding without ridiculous poetry, now, would it?” 

Ashley continued with the poem, to the sound of hoots and cheering from around the room, and when she drew to a close she curtseyed dramatically and high fived James on her way back to the table. She had the world’s cheekiest grin as she sidled up to her chair, and when Yesmin threw her a dirty look she winked in return. 

“What’s wrong, darling wife?” she asked innocently, to the sound of guffaws from the bridal party. “I was simply following your example.”

Yesmin stood and took her hands in hers. “Oh but love, don’t you want to hear what I have in store?” she replied, loudly enough that everyone in the vicinity groaned in anticipation. “How your kisses are like poetry, like the sound of angels and light, how your touch is like-”

Ashley cut her off short with a kiss, and the cheers and laughter of their friends and family had the two of them laughing a moment later, hands entwined and smiles matching as they stood together. 

There were scars they would carry for the rest of their lives, but they would carry them together- bad poetry and all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You and Me, Martine Kindermans  
> http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1487636.You_and_Me


End file.
